Arthur Bernstein

Name: Arthur Bernstein

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Grade: 12th Grade (Senior)

School: Cochise High School

Hobbies and Interests: Video games, writing fiction, mathematics, soccer, reading.

Appearance: Arthur Bernstein is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. He is 5'9" and weighs around 145 pounds, with a BMI of 21. This places Arthur in the ideal healthy BMI range. Arthur has brown colored eyes, shaped like almonds. His left eye was paralyzed at birth due to complications, and permanently remains slightly open. His eyebrows are thin, and slightly lighter colored than his hair.

Arthur's skin is pale white. He has a wider than average forehead and a prominent chin. He has had straight teeth since he was born. Arthur's teeth have a yellowish tint from inconsistent brushing habits. His nose is crooked from being broken at a young age, and is short and wide.

Arthur does not give much thought towards his appearance, and as such showers once every three or four days. His fingernails are often long and untrimmed. Little to no traces of facial hair exists on Arthur's face.

Arthur's hair is dark brown and straight. Arthur's hair is often scraggly and unwashed, and dandruff plagues his forehead. He does not make much effort to comb his hair, and as such several stray hairs often point out from his head.

During the fall and winter, Arthur wears sweatpants and long sleeved plain t-shirts under a fleece sweater. During the spring and summer, Arthur wears cargo shorts and t-shirts with logos and symbols from the video games that he plays. On days where he intends to spend time outside, he wears a hat to shield his eyes. On the day of the kidnapping, Arthur was wearing brown cargo shorts and a Starcraft t-shirt, as well as a green bucket hat.

Biography: Arthur Bernstein was born in Kingman, Arizona in the late nineties. He has lived in Kingman his whole life, and has never traveled outside of Arizona. Until the he was five years old, he was raised by his mother, a stay at home mom, and his father, a curator at the local museum. Arthur has two older brothers, one four years older and the eldest being seven years older, and a younger sister that was born when he was three. During his early childhood, Arthur went to preschool with other children his age and was accepted by the majority of the children there. He got along well with his older brothers, and eventually his younger sister when she was born. Generally, their parents let them have free reign around town, letting them go where they pleased when they pleased, and kept them on very loose leashes, even after Arthur broke his nose during a day at the playground. On the weekends, the family would go to the small synagogue downtown. Religion was important to the Bernsteins, especially to Arthur's mother.

Arthur's relatively normal upbringing came to an end at the age of five, when his mother was killed in a hit-and-run car accident while running errands. This accident had very different effects on each of the Bernstein siblings. Arthur's eldest brother, Charlie, was 12 years old, and the death of his mother, whom he was very close to, kick-started a lifetime of depression and anxiety. Charlie developed a fear of automobiles, and for a time refused to leave the house unless it was late at night when few cars would be out. The next youngest, James, became hostile towards his siblings, and fell out with his father. He began to engage in illegal activity as he grew older, turning to substances at age 15. Arthur's sister, Marie, was only two years old at the time of the accident, and grew up never knowing her mother. Marie turned to Arthur to fill the void her mother left, and the two only became closer and closer over the years.

Arthur's father took the death of his wife hard. For several days after the accident, he was inconsolable, leaving the Bernstein siblings in the care of the memers of their extended family that were visiting them, while he wept alone in his bedroom. For several months after the funeral, he remained cold and distant, eventually coming back to a more normal state of mind by the time that Arthur was in 1st grade. He never dated another woman after the death of his wife, and sometimes spends long hours staring at pictures of the two of them together silently in his room. The family ceased going to synagogue, as his father lost interest in others telling him how sorry they were, and religion mostly passed out of the lives of the Bernsteins from then on. Arthur's brother Charlie did his best to shield Arthur from his father's grieving, but the few instances where he was able to see the harsh reality of his father's mental state instilled in Arthur a desire to protect his father from any further emotional distress through protecting his sister and making sure nothing bad or damaging happened to her.

Arthur was never particularly close to either of his parents. He spent most of his time outside playing with his preschool friends before the accident, and for a time afterwards he continued this activity, the death of his mother not registering well with his developing brain. Over time, Arthur grew more and more distant from his peers, driven away by the involvement of their mothers in their lives and in school and from teasing over his paralyzed left eye. By the time he was through with second grade, Arthur had very few friends left, having alienated himself from the rest of his peers. Socially, Arthur was outgoing, and had several acquaintances, but he let very few, if any, of his peers get close enough to know the troubles he was going through in his mind.

It fell on Arthur's father to raise the four Bernstein siblings. For his part, he tried his hardest to juggle his job with raising his children, often bringing them to work with him. While Marie enjoyed the museum, Arthur began to associate the exhibits and art in the building with his father mentally. He viewed it as belonging solely to his dad, and made very little effort to do much research into either of the subjects, complying only with what he was taught in school. Even though Arthur's father did his best to get his son involved in his work, offering often to take Arthur out to the museum every weekend, Arthur chose instead to stay home and play video games by himself.

Arthur's interest in video games stems from his fifth birthday, the last before the accident that killed his mother, where he received his first game console as a birthday present, a Nintendo Gamecube. When Arthur felt down or alone, he would turn to video games as an escape from his life. He was drawn to the colorful landscapes and cartoon-like environments of Nintendo games, and prefers them to the first-person shooter games that his friends tend to spend their time playing. As Marie got older, he began to let her play video games with him as a means of spending time together, a hobby the two would cherish throughout their lives. As Marie was two years younger than him, Arthur began to restrict the games he played to non-violent similarly family friendly games made by Nintendo and other video game developers, eschewing violent games as a negative influence. While his peers found it odd that Arthur played games they saw as more childish, they overlooked it, writing it off as the fault of his younger sister.

Arthur did well with his school work throughout elementary school, through no extra effort on his own part. Arthur did not make any special moves in order to study, nor did his father employ a tutor. For the most part, Arthur paid attention in class and took notes when asked, and did especially well in traditional classroom settings throughout his entire educational career. The concept of academic failure was relatively foreign to Arthur, and he found it hard to empathize with students who did worse than he did in their classes. Math class in particular interested Arthur, and was the only class that he would give any time to outside of schoolwork. The world of absolutes presented in mathematics was a stark contrast from his volatile life, and Arthur found this reality as a comforting presence during his adolescence.

During eighth grade, Arthur developed a passion for reading after being assigned a book report on George Orwell's Animal Farm, a book that he considers his favorite to the present day. In addition to playing video games after school, Arthur began to spend time in the library reading more dystopian fiction and other literary classics, spurred on by his reading assignment and enjoyment of Animal Farm. Some of Arthur's other favorite books include Jack Kerouac's On The Road and Haruki Murakami's 1Q84.

Charlie moved away to college at Old Dominion University in Virginia when Arthur was in seventh grade, leaving Arthur as the middle child. As James became more and more involved with substance abuse and drugs, he dropped out of Cochise High School in his sophomore year, moving into the basement of the Bernstein family's modest two story home. James' relationship with his father hit a breaking point when he was caught with several ounces of Marijuana in his room, and James was subsequently thrown out of the house. He has not been seen in Kingman since. Seeing his brother's exit from the family, Arthur made up his mind to never use drugs or alcohol. He began to police Marie for any possible usage of these substances as well, careful that she didn't turn out like their older brother James. During this stressful time, Arthur spent more time reading books and doing math problems, worlds that he felt he had control over. Eventually, he began to write fictional stories as a mental exercise. Like with math, he enjoyed the control and order in the worlds he created. Arthur has never shown anyone his writing, out of fear that his ideas will be rejected by his peers and potential audience.

It was around this time that Arthur began to attend Cochise High School, adapting relatively easily to the larger school environment. He continued to do well in his classes, maintaining amicable relationships with his classmates and other students his age. His few close friends began to become interested in sports, which Arthur tried out for. He was never particularly athletic, but he was not weak in any sense of the word. Of all the sports he tried out for, Arthur found that he had a calling for soccer, and he joined the team as a central midfielder. He remained on the soccer team throughout his time in high school.

Arthur's over protectiveness of his sister never bothered Marie until she enrolled at Cochise High School and the two began to share the same school building, where he could keep her under closer watch. Arthur began to interfere in her social life, telling her to disassociate with classmates of hers that he thought to be bad influences. While Marie has fond memories of their childhood together, she seeks a way to let Arthur know that she is not a helpless child anymore. While Marie and Arthur have not had any head on confrontations over his meddling influence yet, tensions between the two continue to rise to the present day. Arthur is oblivious of any objections on his sister's part to his over-protectiveness, due to the fact that Marie does her best to keep such feelings hidden. Her memories of their childhood keep her from endangering the persistence of their outwardly positive relationship.

As his classes got more and more difficult, Arthur's modus operandi of simply paying attention in class began to work less and less. His grades dropped from A's to B's, but this change was not enough to cause neither Arthur nor his father any alarm. He continued to spend his free time playing soccer or playing video games with his sister. As he goes into his senior year, Arthur's primary focus is being around for his sister, who he still views as unable to take care of herself. Arthur has had two relationships with girls in his grade during middle school, neither of which went any further than kissing and intimate contact. Arthur has not had any relationships during his time at Cochise, and remains a virgin.

Arthur has a somewhat upbeat, friendly personality, doing his best to extend politeness and kindness to anyone with a problem that he thinks he can solve. He is gentle to his friends, but has little patience for people unable to follow his instructions when he offers his help. In his classes, he participates readily in group activities and pays attention to every lesson. Outside of class, he has a serious personality, often unreceptive to any attempts at a joke. He does not have a job outside of school, remaining unemployed so that he can spend more time at home. Arthur eases up dramatically when near his sister, and is far more receptive to jokes and humor when in her company.

As a student, Arthur prefers his science and mathematics classes to his humanities classes, with the exception of English class. Being overexposed to art and history at a young age made Arthur uninterested in the subjects, associating them too much with his early childhood for him to view them as anything past his father's life. Arthur wants to remain in Kingman for as long as he can until Marie graduates high school, making sure that she goes on the right path in life before applying to a university somewhere close to home. He plans on going to university for writing to nurture his hobby into something that he will be more willing to show others and to improve his abilities. In the years after his graduation and before Marie leaves college, he plans to move closer to where she chooses to attend school so he can keep a closer eye on her.

Advantages: Arthur is fairly athletic and physically fit. He is a fast runner, and has above average stamina for his age. Arthur is fairly charismatic and does his best to come off as friendly. He is fairly intelligent, and is able to figure out most problems with time and patience. Arthur is a composed individual, and can remain calm in hectic situations. He has a set of possible allies in the school soccer team. Arthur's drive to be reunited with his sister provides a stable mental ground to start with, and a resolve to keep surviving for her sake.

Disadvantages: While Arthur is a composed individual, his patience with possible teammates is thinner than usual due to his desire to get home to his family. Arthur has issues trusting people who are not already his longtime friends with his true thoughts and feelings, which could make it harder for Arthur to ally with people on the island. While he is more than willing to give people a chance when it comes to assisting them in the short term, long term partnerships are almost entirely out of the question for him with anyone outside his inner circle. On the flip side, Arthur's readiness to help those in need could put him into undesirable situations and confrontations fairly easily.

Designated Number: Male student no. 043

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Designated Weapon: Paintball gun

Conclusion: Oooooh, this is just like that Splatoon game that's about to come out! I mean, not that you'll ever get to enjoy it, but we gave you the next best thing as a consolation prize. - Dennis Lourvey

'The above biography is as written by CrossbowPig. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: CrossbowPig

Kills: None

Killed By: Coleen Reagan

Collected Weapons: Paintball gun (assigned weapon), 5-foot spear (from Kimiko Kao)

Allies: Henry Spencer, Jasper Bustamante, Coleen Reagan

Enemies: Alessio Rigano

Mid-game Evaluation: Arthur found Henry Spencer and Jasper Bustamante on the docks. He initially scared them with his gun, but he explained himself and the two were happy to include him. Henry was at that point in denial, and both Arthur and Jasper chose to go along with it to delay their having to deal with the realities of the island.

They wandered up the nearby shoreline, where they found Coleen Reagan. They spoke with her briefly, but the topics of the conversation broke down Henry's defensive mechanisms and he began to run away, suddenly terrified with his own clarity. Jasper pursued but Coleen and Arthur were both less inclined to do so. Arthur mused now that he could no longer use Henry's denial to shape his own plans, and ultimately elected to follow Coleen as she left the scene, away from Jasper and Henry. They hid away in the gym building for the rest of Day 1, in the room with the mirror earlier broken by Lily Caldwell. Both he and Coleen woke just before announcements, and were eating when it came on. Arthur recognized Jennifer Su, and Barry Banks.

Their breakfast was interrupted by the arrival of Bradley Floyd, Alba Reyes, and Bryony Adams. Kimiko Kao also arrived into the conversation. Bradley began to pester Kimiko, and Arthur quickly realized that could be a problem and tried to stop him. Bradley however, continued to do so despite various others also trying to warn him, and an incensed Kimiko eventually stabbed Bradley with her spear and fled. Arthur hadn't thought it would come to that, was shocked and unable to intervene in time. Alba was quickly resolved to track Kimiko down, and Alan agreed with her plan. Bryony didn't, and forced herself to intervene and try and stop the attempt. Alba left, but Arthur hesitated and ultimately conceded, watching as Bryony ran after Alba. He stayed and moved the corpse out of the gym and out of immediate sight. He reflected on his failures to that point, then steeled himself and took the spear. He'd decided to leave, and extended the opportunity to Coleen for them to continue travelling together.

Coleen followed him to the art therapy room, where they spent the night and the next day. Arthur reflected on how he was growing attached to her like he was to his sister as he ruminated on the growing numbers of confirmed deaths. As they conversed she implied prior suicidal thought and Arthur picked up on it, shocked but unable to come up with a strong response. Coleen made it clear that she intended to stay alive for the moment and changed the topic, to their next destination, and Arthur affirmed he'd remain her ally. As she left he searched the body that had been in the room, Mitch Settles', but failed to find the gun he'd killed himself with.

He followed Coleen up the stairs, where she'd found Bernadette Thomas in the doctor's offices areas. Arthur was friendly, but careful. Coleen introduced them and Arthur was willing to let his guard down and welcome Bern into the alliance when she asked. Arthur found a positive feeling of confidence in having more people to protect, as he saw it. The girls decided to move on and he followed.

They trekked up the northwestern cliffs after having spent a night safe. Arthur and Coleen both had a moment to themselves to cry after announcements, Arthur because of the death of Jasper being announced. He was slightly ashamed to be unable to comfort Coleen, even as the scene dissolved into a confrontation between Bern and newcomer Brendan Harte. Coleen and Arthur watched, alongside Alba Reyes, Brendan's ally who went to them to check on them, Arthur offering a mixed evaluation of their days so far. They stood aside, and were unable to respond to the sudden escalation between Brendan and Bern, when Brendan snapped under the pressure of Bern's interrogating him about having killed and pushed her, accidentally murdering her. Brendan started to cry but Coleen would have none of it and used Bern's gun to fire a warning shot and demand Brendan go, a move Arthur backed up with threats of his own. Brendan and Alba left and Coleen called for them to go in a somber tone, Arthur followed, his emotional state frailer than it had ever prior been as he contemplated on being a failure of a guardian.

Post-Game Evaluation: 

Memorable Quotes: "I'm hopeless,"  -- Confessed to himself, when nobody else was around.

"To be honest, exploring would probably be the closest thing to 'fun' that we could make of this place." -- To Coleen.

Threads
Below is a list of threads containing Arthur, in chronological order.

The Past:
 * TV People

V6:
 * Plutonian Wharf
 * Self Doubts and Hurricanes
 * This Be The Verse
 * Honeysuckle and Pain
 * There Are So Many Offices, but Everybody Seems To Be A Patient. Where Are the Doctors?
 * Think About Your Life
 * Cooking Up Trouble

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Arthur Bernstein. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''